


Vice

by TriptocaineAndThirium



Category: Heavy Rain
Genre: (well it’s not really Ethan), (you’ll see what I mean once you read), Angst, Lots of it, M/M, poor Northan why must I make them suffer?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-08-02 18:28:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16310423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TriptocaineAndThirium/pseuds/TriptocaineAndThirium
Summary: He couldn’t do this.He couldn’t do this.This wasn’t really him.It was just an illusion caused by his guilt.He couldn’t do this.He had to do this.





	Vice

**Author's Note:**

> yeahhhh I’m back with more angst

In all his thirty-four years of life, even through his addiction and the physical and mental chaos it wrought upon him, Norman Jayden had never felt more alone. More broken.

 

He still remembered the news reports. Both of them. The pictures. The noose around Ethan’s neck, the pallidity and lifelessness of Shaun’s face…. _God,_ how he wished he could just forget. How he wished this was all a dream, a horrible nightmare from which he could wake up. But the constant pangs of guilt in his heart reminded him of the cruelty of the truth, that this was reality. That Shaun Mars and his father, his father with those _beautiful_ blue eyes, were both dead. Reality seemed such a fickle thing until it hurt you in a way that you never really recovered from.

 

At least Blake had the decency to leave him alone now, for once. Maybe it was because he realized Norman had been right. Or maybe he was just being stubborn. It wasn’t like he could care right now anyways. He felt too cold, too _sick_ to care. So cold, as if there were ice in his veins in place of blood, as if he’d drowned instead of Shaun, as if he were the one in that jail cell instead of Ethan….

 

_ Ethan…. _

 

He would give anything in the world for him and Shaun to be alive again. Hell, he would sell his goddamn soul if it meant they’d walk the earth once more. They deserved life so much more than he did. The way he saw it, he’d already risked everything else for them. His life, his career. He didn’t have anyone who would mourn him.

 

Norman let out a deep sigh, pulling on his ARI glove and glasses. Why was he still doing this? Shaun was gone, Ethan was assumed to have been the killer; he had no purpose looking for any more evidence. But he knew that the real killer’s identity was here, somewhere in this data, somewhere in the clues he had. He owed it to Ethan, to clear his name. And he’d be damned if he wouldn’t try his hardest to accomplish that mission.

 

_ (And he’d be lying if he said he didn’t want to get away from this horrid reality, even for a little while.) _

 

“Seems a bit quiet here today,” Norman remarked. Usually, depending on which environment he chose upon entering ARI, there would usually be the sound of rushing water or the occasional rustling of leaves in a gentle breeze. But silence was what greeted him instead. Strange, but not entirely bothersome. Norman didn’t mind a bit of quiet.

 

Scrolling through case files, and so far coming up with nothing beyond what he knew was insubstantial, the agent allowed his mind to wander. The first thing he recalled, as he’d been doing often lately, was Ethan. Ethan, Ethan, Ethan. Norman remembered so vividly the unspeakable depth his eyes held, the steely determination in his gaze when he’d told him he was the only one who could save his son. He remembered the rage he felt when Blake started to beat him before his eyes. Every grunt of pain Ethan gave had set off sparks shooting from within his tensing nerves, some instinctual need to protect awakened by the brutality he had been witness to. Above all he remembered the softness of the man’s hair, and the gentleness of his voice. He longed to see him once more, he knew the futility of it but the hope lingered, as resilient as the man that the hope was borne out of love for had once been.

 

_ Love. He loved Ethan Mars.  _ Norman knew this in his heart and mind to be true, as verifiable and plain to see as any forensic evidence ARI could scan for; for why else would all of this be affecting him so much?  _ “You barely knew him,” _ Blake’s gruff voice echoed in his mind. A solemn, sorrowful rage twisted in his gut at the words. How dare he? Blake wasn’t outwardly wrong, he’d only known Ethan for a fleeting few days, only short interactions, but he felt as if he’d known him forever. And he wished more than anything in this godforsaken world that he’d gotten the chance.

 

“I can always tell you more, you know.”

 

Norman turned, startled at the voice, and on that instant the world collapsed and fell away at his feet.

 

There, leaning casually against a tree, was Ethan Mars himself. He appeared just as he was the day Norman truly fell for him, except his blue-gray sweater had no holes or noticeable damage to it. No noose, no jail uniform. And those beautiful blue eyes Norman adored and missed so deeply were staring right at  _ him,  _ only him. Nothing else, as if nothing in here mattered but him. Confusion, longing, regret, and mourning all swirled up into a tumultuous tornado of emotions within the agent, only mounting as Ethan came closer. He tried to form words, but could not. Ethan’s very presence seemed to halt his thoughts as they came half-formed from mind to mouth.

 

Finally, Norman stammered, “How are you…”

 

Ethan finished his sentence for him. “Here? I’m not exactly sure. I just...woke up here, I guess?” A light shrug of the shoulders followed his answer. Gently, his hand came to rest palm-to-palm with Norman’s gloved hand. The profiler jolted slightly at his touch, for at the meeting of their palms there seemed to be a pulse radiated from the contact. Ethan’s touch felt shockingly real, even through the glove he could feel the warmth of his hand.

 

Ethan’s eyes were still on him. Norman felt weak, he felt as if he could stare into those ocean eyes endlessly. He wanted time to freeze, so he could capture this moment and stay in it forever. The void in his heart left by Ethan’s passing was of unimportance, as by some miracle he was  _ here. _

 

Slowly, they drew closer to one another, Norman never looking away from Ethan. A slight grin spread across the father’s face, and damn if Norman didn’t feel like his heart was going to stop at just how handsome he looked. He’d never seen him smile before. He was  _ beautiful.  _

 

“Hi,” the profiler spoke softly, red blooming across his cheeks once he realized how shy he sounded.

 

“Hi,” Ethan returned the greeting, eyes drawn first to their touching hands and then to Norman’s face. A bashful look came into his eyes and his grin faltered but did not leave his face entirely. “Do you mind if I….”

 

“No,” Norman breathed, already knowing what the other was getting at. “Please.” Ethan drew ever closer, so close Norman could see all of the small details of his face. He had been waiting for this chance ever since he’d first realized he loved Ethan, and it was evident the other man had been waiting as well.

 

Then their lips met, and Norman was gone. He lost himself in Ethan, in his warmth. He felt like Ethan was the last piece of a puzzle that had been left incomplete for some time, that Ethan was something he needed but had gone without for so long. Now that he had him, he never wanted to let go.

 

And if this did some damage to his brain by nature of overuse, who was he to care? All he cared about now was Ethan.

  
  


It wasn’t until a few weeks later that he started to realize something was wrong.

 

The precinct was  _ still  _ dealing with the fallout from the press; Norman had never hated press conferences so much before in his life. Luckily visiting Ethan in ARI every day served as a good stress reliever. Part of him worried about the danger of overuse, but he pushed it to the back of his mind to be concerned with later. Ethan was more important than that.

 

After he’d finished his visit with Ethan (of course, in the privacy of what could barely qualify as an office), Blake quite rudely decided to barge in with this look on his face like Norman was the craziest person in the world. Norman sighed; he was simply not in the mood to deal with Blake’s shit at the moment. The agent turned to face the other man. “Whaddya want, Blake?” 

 

“What I want is for you to tell me why the hell I heard you talking to someone in here. Someone which I remember you calling Ethan Mars. The same one that fucking hung himself in his jail cell. Fucker couldn’t take the disappointment of knowing he got caught, I guess. If only we’d saved the kid…” Norman swore that in that moment he felt himself distanced from his body, floating in a space where all he knew was denial and rage and the man he loved.  _ Ethan Mars is not dead. Ethan Mars is not dead. Ethan Mars is not dead. Ethan Mars is not dead. Ethan Mars is not dead. _

 

Norman stood from his chair, let out a growl, and swung at Blake, his eyes hard and cold and empty. Blake just barely dodged the erratic movement, and pushed Norman roughly back against his desk. Norman charged again, blind rage fueling him. This time he managed to throw Blake back against the other wall, hands clawing against his face as though he was trying to tear it open. He punched Blake in the nose, and blood ran down the man’s face from the blow. It reminded him of when Blake beat Ethan, and that thought made him angrier. He wanted Blake to bleed. He  _ needed _ him to bleed. 

  
  


Blake would not be deterred in stopping Norman’s crazed rampage, and pushed him back again. The pain in Norman’s back from hitting the edge of his desk twice was enough to jolt him back to his senses. The lieutenant snapped at him. “What the hell’s gotten into you,  _ Norman?  _ You nearly tried to kill me!” Norman did not respond. Blake scoffed and slammed the door shut, leaving Norman in the relative silence of his office once more. He sat in his chair, staring at his hands, which thankfully hadn’t started to shake yet. He could still hear the words in his mind.  _ Ethan Mars is not dead. Ethan Mars is not dead.  _ “....Right?” he whispered brokenly. The words felt so wrong, but at the same time they seemed true….

 

He was starting to forget. He forgot, yet he remembered. He was slipping. He knew these words to be contradictory to fact, he knew Ethan was dead. He knew that.

 

But if he believed these words, this other reality he found himself venturing more and more into, would that make him insane?

 

Norman was going to find out soon enough.

  
  
  


Thursday, December 12. 7:46 a.m. 

 

Norman awoke with a jolt, a tremor running across his entire body.  _ Shaun….again. I couldn’t save him.  _ The terrors of the night preyed upon him more easily now, and they were always the same; reflecting his failures in the case. In all of the cases. Nine boys, drowned. They didn't deserve that fate, at all. Absentmindedly, he found his thoughts wandering to Ethan again. He wondered about his ex-wife mentioning Ethan babbling about seeing bodies drowning in rainwater. Was that what this was like, in a way? The inquiry caused his eyes to flick to the ARI glasses that sat on his bedside table. He was never too far from them nowadays. 

 

Putting the glasses on, he was greeted with a rather strange sight. The landscape was barren, and the sky was dark and cloudy as if a rainstorm was coming. The air was cool as it normally was, and stagnant, but something about it sent chills up Norman’s spine. This...felt wrong. It wasn’t one of the environments preprogrammed into ARI. It didn’t seem familiar to him at all. Where was Ethan? He needed to ask if he knew anything about this. 

 

“Ethan? Ethan, are you here? What’s going on?” the agent called out to his lover. No reply was given, so Norman abandoned his desk. The more he ventured into this strange virtual environment, the more he noticed that it seemed to run itself on a loop; the code forming the environment repeated itself, to make it appear longer than it really was. This was the case with most of ARI’s environments, but like everything else it just put him more on edge.

 

“Norman?” he heard Ethan finally call out, from behind him. He turned to face him, relief washing over him. “What’s going on?” the older man asked.

 

“I don’t know,” Norman replied. “Whatever’s going on, something in here doesn’t feel right to me. It’s like….this place got corrupted somehow or something. Weird shit like this only ever happened when I was trying to find clues about the killer and nearly died…” 

 

In the beat of silence that followed, Norman could have sworn he heard Ethan  _ chuckle.  _

 

“And why would that be funny, Ethan?” he inquired, confused and a tad bit worried. Ethan’s eyes were trained to the ground, and he let out another chuckle and mumbled something afterward. “What?” the agent asked. Ethan repeated what he said, louder this time. Norman’s blood ran cold at the words uttered.

 

_ “Am I real, Norman?” _

 

His voice had a strange tone to it, imperceptible in all the moments before this. It was almost….glitchy, for lack of a better word. The subtle side-to-side movement of Ethan’s head as he spoke became erratic the longer Norman refrained from answering. The look of his blue eyes made Norman feel cold; they were almost glowing with a strange light, not unlike the glow around the frames of the ARI glasses whenever Norman used them…..

 

_He’s not real._ _He’s not real, he’s just a construct of ARI created by my guilt. How could I not have seen this coming?_

 

_ Oh my god. Am I going insane? Was Blake right? I must be if I never noticed any of this before…. _

 

Norman tried to pry the glasses off his face, but it felt as though they had become fused to his face, and his eyes burned while he struggled with them. Ethan simply smiled.  _ “You don’t have to leave, Norman….you can stay in here with me forever. Just the two of us,”  _ he spoke in that strange voice again. His hand reached for that of his lover’s, but the touch made a chill come up Norman’s spine. He jerked his hand back, shaking it as if Ethan’s touch alone had infected him with some virus or something. In his struggle with the glasses, he fell out of the bed and landed hard on the floor, but he barely registered the pain. His fear and panic was driving his fracturing mind in circles.

 

Frantically, the agent stumbled around the room, blinded to his surroundings while the glasses remained on him. Finally, after pulling and tugging at them for what seemed like forever, they slipped off. His eyes did not quite appreciate the sudden reintroduction to the now blaring rays of sunlight which peeked through his window, but he didn’t care for that at the moment. He needed to focus. That was it. Just focus.  _ Turn your back on it, take away its energy and it disappears. _

 

Oh, how he longed for it to be that simple again. Just block it out and it would go away. But he’d long gone past the point where it was that easy. He felt the itch behind his palms and his eyes, the wind moving his hair, the spray of rainwater on his face. He heard Ethan calling to him.  _ “I’m still here, Norman...come back to me….I’m so lonely...don’t you love me, Norman? I love you….”  _

 

Norman pressed a pillow to his face, screaming into it as he fought himself. His eyes burned, he still longed for Ethan even though he knew it wasn’t really him that was there. His mind flickered between ARI and the real world, one moment he felt the pillow against his face and the next he felt the warm touch of Ethan’s hand.

 

_ I can’t do this anymore. I need to see proof. I need to know that he’s dead. Then maybe this’ll all go away...without  _ that. 

 

He needed Tripto. Just a little. Just to clear his head.  _ No.  _ He could resist. It was either that or the ARI that would kill him if he kept on like this, and he could never use ARI the same way again after this. He could fight this on his own. He was going to die. This was it. But he had to fight. He wasn’t just going to keel over and give up, not until he’d found what he sought.

 

Ethan was his greatest vice. Greater than ARI or Triptocaine. As much as it hurt, he needed to let him go. He couldn’t stay with this fake, this illusion. He needed to see the real Ethan. And there was only one way to do that.

 

With renewed determination, Norman managed to get dressed before ARI flickered around him again. The dark, clouded sky had a reddish hue to it now. The dizziness came over Norman quickly, causing him to stumble on his way out of the door. But he held strong. He knew how to fight this.

 

As he got into his car, Ethan appeared in front of it with the intent to stop him from leaving. “Please don’t, Norman….don’t you want to stay with me?” he begged.

 

Norman looked down for a second, contemplating. Then he switched the car into drive. “I’m sorry, Ethan, but I can’t.” Luckily, he was spared the possible sight of Ethan getting run down by his car, as the real world came into his sights again. Blood dripped from his nose, his vision blurred at the edges. After a few minutes he was nearly there, it was like the route was ingrained in his mind.

 

Once his destination was in view, Norman stumbled out of his car; the cemetery was empty. Good. No one would see. Amidst the mounting pressure in his head and the crimson blots creeping into his vision, he made his way to the headstone he sought.

 

A few rows ahead, then across a few... _ there.  _ Norman knelt, wiping the blood from his nose.

 

_ Ethan Mars _

_ September 5, 1973 - October 21, 2011 _

_ A beloved father and husband _

 

Norman traced the words gently with a trembling hand and smiled even as blood began to run down from his left eye. “Wait for me, Ethan…” he whispered. “I’m coming.”

 

He could not stay here and fight any longer. Just as Ethan had been his reason to keep living - even though it had mostly been ARI’s projection of him - he was now his reason to finally lay himself down and rest, for good. The pressure in his head increased more, and the blood kept flowing from his eyes and nose. But he was ready for it to end now.

 

Norman lay down beside Ethan’s grave, and let himself rest.

**Author's Note:**

> the inspiration for the “corrupted” ARI environment came from Will Byers’ visions of the Upside Down in the second season of Stranger Things, by the way.


End file.
